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Here is a new and improved recipe for the famous northeastern Thai green papaya salad! This time around, I provide you with lots of tricks, tips, and explanations to make sure you can really master this classic, delicious salad. This is also a very healthy dish, so I can really let myself indulge without having to hold back!
Serve it with some sticky rice, and try changing up the vegetables because in Thailand we make hundreds of variations on this salad! Try this apple and chayote salad or corn and cucumber salad for example!
Note also that green papaya salad is gluten-free. Enjoy!
Watch The Full Video Tutorial!
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Thai Green Papaya Salad ส้มตำไทย (som tum)
- Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups julienned green papaya, soak in ice water for 10-15 minutes until they are firmer (See video @1:20 on how to julienne green papaya)
- 2 cloves garlic
- Thai chilies, to taste
- 1 ½ Tbsp palm sugar, finely chopped, packed
- 2-3 long beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
- 3 Tbsp roasted peanuts (see note)
- 1 heaping Tbsp small dried shrimp, roughly chop if you have large ones
- 2 Tbsp fresh lime juice (see note)
- 2 tsp tamarind juice (what is tamarind?)
- 1 ½ Tbsp fish sauce
- ½ cup grape tomato halves or a small tomato cut into wedges
- Serving suggestion: sticky rice and BBQ chicken are classic pairings with papaya salad!
Notes:
I prefer buying raw peanuts and roasting them myself for the best flavour. Simply put them in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15-18 minutes until they're golden, stirring them half way through for even roasting. Keep leftover roasted peanuts in the fridge or freezer to keep them fresher longer.
See video for the Thai way of cutting lime. If you have a big juicy lime, 2 Tbsp of juice is about ⅔ of the lime (so if you cut the lime the way I did in the video, you'll only need to juice piece #1 and #2). If your lime is small or doesn't have much juice, use the whole lime. You can always measure out the lime juice before adding to be sure.
Instructions
- Drain the soaked papaya well and place in a bowl lined with 2 layers of paper towel to absorb excess water. You want to have as little water on the papaya as possible so as to not dilute the dressing.
- In a large mortar and pestle, pound garlic and chilies until there are no more big chunks (pieces of chili skin are fine).
- Add palm sugar and mash with the pestle until it turns into a wet paste and all the chunks are dissolved.
- Add long beans and pound just until they're broken.
- Add dried shrimp and peanuts and pound to break the peanuts up slightly.
- Add fish sauce, tamarind juice, and lime juice, adding the squeezed lime skin into the mortar as well for extra lime fragrance. Stir with a large spoon to mix and dissolve the sugar.
- Add shredded papaya and tomatoes, and mix using the pound-and-flip method as shown in the video @8:40. Once everything looks well mixed and the tomatoes are just slightly crushed, it's done!
- Plate and sprinkle with the remaining peanuts (I forgot to do this in the video!).
- For a truly classic Northeastern Thai meal, serve with sticky rice and the ultimate BBQ chicken
If you have a small mortar and pestle:
- Follow instructions above in your small mortar, and stop before adding the papaya and tomatoes.
- Transfer the dressing into a large mixing bowl, then add the papaya and tomatoes and toss, pushing on the tomatoes slightly to bruise and release a bit of the juice.
- Plate and sprinkle with the remaining peanuts.
If you don't have any mortar and pestle:
- Finely mince or grate the garlic and finely mince the chilies and add them to a mixing bowl.
- Put finely chopped palm sugar in a small bowl and drizzle a little hot water on it and mash it into a paste with a fork.
- Add fish sauce, lime juice and tamarind and stir until the sugar is dissolved and add to the garlic and chilies. Stir everything around to infuse the garlic and chilies into the dressing.
- Roughly chop half the peanuts and add to the mixing bowl.
- Bruise the long beans until broken using anything heavy you can find in the kitchen (a bottle, a can, rolling pin) then add to the mixing bowl.
- Add tomatoes and press on them to bruise and release the juice slightly.
- Add papaya and toss to mix.
- Plate and garnish with the remaining peanuts.
Baba Y
This is the best papaya salad. All my guests minds were blown! I dream about it at night sometimes.
★★★★★
Adam The HTK Intern
Awesome! 🙂
Cathelyn
You are so adorable to watch! I love Papaya salad since a co- worker of mine introduced this dish to me. My son loves it too, so I must learn how to make this so we don’t have to order and have it delivered to find out it doesn’t have the same taste I was hoping for. Thanks for sharing this video!
bo
my fave dish!
★★★★★
Mark
I love this but recently was out of dried shrimp and beans so added substituted broccoli and corn. The broccoli florets absorb a lot of the sauce too!
Chris
How exactly does one *substitute* broccoli and corn for dried shrimp and long beans? Must the substitute not bear at least some resemblance to the ingredient it’s standing in for?
Justin
Just made this after a trip to Hawaii. It is a faithful recreation of what I had there! I bought blanched peanuts and roasted them (so good!) and made Tamarind juice from pulp I got from the Asian store by my house. They even had some very good green papaya for cheap! Thank you for this excellent recipe!
★★★★★
Sara Cohen
I made the recipe as instructed.it was delicious! I didn’t have tamarind at home so I decided to use a little balsamic vinegar. It came out delicious! I have a papaya tree in front of my house. I look forward to adding this dish to my repertoire
. Thank you.
Brigette
this recipe is everything you could ever want! I can't believe I've never made it at home - its so easy!
★★★★★
San
I made this but since we don't have palm sugar I used muscovado, I also adjusted the chili's as my family don't like spicy food and skipped the dried shrimp and tamarind as it's not available in the grocery. So delicious, reminded me of the papaya salad I had when I went to Thailand.
Thank you, Pailin! 🙂
★★★★★
Sh
Best green papaya salad I ever had. unfortunately the papaya I used was a bit ripe. Still, turned out perfect.
★★★★★
Ruth
Absolutely perfect! I lived in thailand for several years and ate som tum multiple times per week. It was the food that I was saddest to leave behind when we moved back to Canada. I never tried ordering it at a restaurant for fear that it wouldn't taste the same, and would ruin my fond memories. Your recipe tasted just as I remember the som tum on my soi tasting, and I practically cried as I ate it. Thank you!!
★★★★★
Adam The HTK Intern
Awwww! Thanks Ruth! I just passed this on to Pailin to make sure she sees it 🙂
Robbie
So damn good!
★★★★★
Anupama
Could I use the korean tiny fermented shrimp that goes in kimchi instead of dried shrimp? It's what I have but I don't want to mess up my dressing!
Pailin Chongchitnant
You could just leave it out. Don't add fermented anything to it or it will change the flavour!
Michele
Awesome recipe, love som tam, a family favourite
★★★★★
Robert
A classic Thai dish found on most every Thai restaurant menu. Who knew I could make as good a version at home? The HTK recipe and accompanying video are all you need to make an authentic Som Tum.
★★★★★
Michael
Best Thai salad ever!
I make it once a week and I eat it every day when I'm visiting Thailand.
Great original recipe here from Pai.
★★★★★
Stephen Chan
My all-time favourite Thai salad, and is one of my first recipes I tried with Pai's recipes, so good and it's always in my rotation from day one till now.
★★★★★